


disaster in the making (we're not sorry for it)

by guiltylights



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, Law becomes a Warlord, Law is Dramatic and i love him, during time skip, gratuitous amounts of bird puns for Doffy, the Shichibukai are Disasters, the character interaction in this fic is SO OBSCURE its tag didn't exist originally, this fic is 2x longer than expected, try to remember HOW Law becomes a Warlord in canon guys, y'all this local fic writer finally did it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 09:32:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16658606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guiltylights/pseuds/guiltylights
Summary: “The colour of your hair paired with your coat is a hideous eyesore,” she informs him. “Get out of my sight.”There’s a pause, and then Doflamingo is laughing uproariously, falling backwards for a moment before neatly leaping away from where Hancock sits frowning imperiously on Salome. Hancock watches, unimpressed, as Doflamingo throws his head back while laughing, the sound as hideous as the cackle of a crow. He cuts himself off as swiftly as he starts; his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.“As spoiled as always, princess,” he coos.Fleet Admiral Sakazuki unwillingly calls a meeting with the Warlords; only Doflamingo and Hancock show up. Law crashes the scene.





	disaster in the making (we're not sorry for it)

**Author's Note:**

> [time started: 17th Nov 18, 2:01pm;– ] 
> 
> The Shichibukai interacting would be a disaster. I needed to write it. Honestly this fic could probably be split into two but since they take place together I’m just dumping them into one. There’s not really much plot in this one, I just wanted to depict the multi-facetedly raging passive-aggressive hatred Shichibukai have for each other. There is a gratuitous misuse of adverbs and for that I really am sorry. 
> 
> What am I doing, guys. My final exams start in a week; I don’t got time for this. 
> 
> Also count how many bird puns I use to describe Doffy. Some are a little tenuous, but if you can link it chances are I probably did it. Go ahead. Count them. I’m not sorry.

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Hancock hates these meetings.

They’re stupid and a waste of her time, and quite frankly, she’s offended that the Marines think they can just order her around as they please, and demand that she sail out all the way from her island to their pathetic excuse of a headquarters for something as trivial and insignificant as a _meeting._ The Marines insist that _it’s important, ma’am, it’s about the safety of the world, and that includes you, too,_ but Hancock can’t see how that’s any of her problem. She’s a pirate. She’s strong. She can take care of herself, and her own island’s people are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves too, and that sums up almost all that she cares about. The rest of the world is none of her concern. And anyway, the marine official that had been tasked in bringing this information to her hadn’t sounded very convincing with the way he was salivating over her figure, anyway.

“Now, now, snake princess, that’s not a very pretty expression on your face,” a voice drawls on her left.

Hancock tips her head to the side. “What expression I make is not up for _you_ to decide.” She replies, haughtily.

Next to her, Donquixote Doflamingo laughs wildly, clapping his hands together from where he sits on top of the round meeting table. “Ooh, and she hisses, too!” He mocks.

Hancock levels a glare at Doflamingo that could cut stone, yet Doflamingo does nothing but smirk back unrepentantly. His ludicrous pink-feathered coat is pulled loosely around his shoulders, the hem of his loud patterned pants raising up to showcase his bare ankles as he crosses his legs. He props his head up on a hand with long, spidery fingers, and Hancock can’t read his expression past his sunglasses, curved and sharp like the wingtips of a predator bird. There’s only the twist of his grin, white and edged like a scimitar and twice as deadly, and Hancock hates him on principle.

“So what brings the darling little snake princess out of her lair?” Doflamingo asks, leaning forward as a predator would do to corner a prey. His neck cranes forward, bare and grotesque, veins standing out from where he strains, and Hancock has to resist the urge to turn him to stone out of sheer disgust; confident though she is in fighting, Hancock knows better than to needlessly start conflicts.

Hancock tosses her hair back over her shoulder instead. It catches on the light streaming in from the windows, sleek and shiny, and she can _feel_ the other Marines standing guard around the room turn to stare. Men, all the same.

Beneath her, Salome writhes slightly from where it had been coiled up as a seat, responding to its mistress’s upset. Its head rears up from where it had previously been hanging over Hancock’s shoulder to hiss at Doflamingo, slitted pupils narrowing. Absentmindedly, Hancock reaches a hand up to pet Salome’s blue ruff, fingers scratching into soft fur.   

“What I choose to do,” she says, very precisely, “is absolutely none of your business.”

Doflamingo cocks his head, curious. “That is true,” he agrees, and Hancock doesn’t ever remember telling Doflamingo that his opinions mattered to her in any capacity or form, but before she could retort, he continues, “but the same applies to me too, so don’t mind me if I choose to make a few guesses, hmm?” He grins, horribly, incorrigibly.

Hancock grits her teeth, though she knows her lovely face betrays nothing. Hancock can feel, even hidden behind his sunglasses, Doflamingo’s eyes flitting over her, assessing and sizing her up, and she pointedly shifts her eyes to stare straight ahead. She’s long since perfected a mask of utter impassivity, honed from a childhood of chains and dirty stone walls and cold slick metal bars, and little to nothing can phase her now. She isn’t going to let someone like _Doflamingo_ get under her skin.

“Maybe the Marines threatened your position as a Warlord if you didn’t show up for at least one meeting,” Doflamingo muses out loud, a finger tapping against the side of his cheek as if in deep thought. He sways from side to side, as he thinks; never a man to sit still and be quiet, Doflamingo, and Hancock finds him highly irritating. “But you don’t seem like the type to care about that sort of thing, don’t you think?”

“Neither do you, but here you are.”

Doflamingo hums. “Fair enough,” he says. He pushes his face into the palm of his hand, as if in deep thought, before suddenly clapping his hands. “You came here out of boredom then, like me!” He crows, as if he’s just solved a great mystery. “The world is so awfully boring, nowadays; it doesn’t hurt to drop by once in a while to kill time, no?” He leers. “To watch the incompetence of the world government.”

As Doflamingo goes on and on, Hancock ignores him. The sound of his voice grates Hancock’s eardrums; Doflamingo may be acting almost chirpy right now, but Hancock holds no misconception. The smirk slicing across Doflamingo’s face is one of entertainment and vicious glee; he’s simply using her as means to pass the time, and in truth why she is here is of no importance to him. Hancock bristles inwardly at the idea of being used – typical of Doflamingo, whom she has heard plays with people like disposable marionettes on a string. Typical of men, too, really.

Deliberately, Hancock tilts her head, so that the sunlight from the windows catches on and winks off her golden snake earrings. The glint of it catches the attention of a Marine standing guard at the door, from across the room – a young man, barely past twenty, with curly brown hair spilling out from underneath his uniform cap. When his gaze meets hers, Hancock lowers her eyelashes, and purses her lips just so – and impassively watches as the Marine guard turns to stone.

Hancock pushes another slip of hair behind her shoulder with one carefully manicured hand, scornful. Men. All the same.

Hancock turns her head away – only to jerk at Doflamingo squatting right in front of her, head ducked and face only mere inches away from her own. “Or maybe, just maybe,” he says, voice pitched somewhere between lazy and dangerous, “the topic of the meeting today is something that you are interested in. Is that the case, Boa Hancock?”

Hancock fights down the shudder that rolls down her back. Every instinct in Hancock is telling her to fight, or run, in the face of this man who’s currently regarding her idly with elbows resting on top of perched knees. Hancock has heard horrific rumours about Donquixote Doflamingo, about the things he’s allegedly done and the crimes he’s committed, all done so cleverly and so thoroughly that there is neither evidence nor witness to implicate him, and so Hancock had mistakenly thought that Doflamingo would hardly care for other people – but Hancock forgets that narrow-minded arrogance never carries a man too far. If Doflamingo can play people like puppets to his bidding, it’s because he pays attention to the people. And that sort of man is more dangerous than anything.

As if he has read her mind, Doflamingo grins even wider. His tongue, slithery and pointed, runs itself across his thin lips in a menacing display of anticipatory glee. Even up this close, Hancock can’t see Doflamingo’s eyes from behind his sunglasses, the expression on one half of his face endlessly opaque, but she can still feel his gaze trained on her, somehow, eagle-eyed. He’s surveying her, looking for any crack in her visage so as to dig in his talons and _pull._ Doflamingo is more monster than man.

But Hancock is the Snake Princess of Amazon Lily for a reason. She is the Pirate Empress of the Kuja Pirates, indomitable and strong and beautiful, and years ago when she had first pulled her and her sisters out of the ruins of their searing childhood she had promised herself to never be forced to bow her head to any man ever again, and so Hancock straightens her spine, arches her neck, and glares right back.

“The colour of your hair paired with your coat is a hideous eyesore,” she informs him. “Get out of my sight.”

There’s a pause, and then Doflamingo is laughing uproariously, falling backwards for a moment before neatly leaping away from where Hancock sits frowning imperiously on Salome. Hancock watches, unimpressed, as Doflamingo throws his head back while laughing, the sound as hideous as the cackle of a crow. He cuts himself off as swiftly as he starts; his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows.

“As spoiled as always, princess,” he coos. Doflamingo’s voice is deceptively casual, but fool her once – and Hancock can see a ticked vein standing out at Doflamingo’s temple, anyway, so Hancock knows that the man across from her is well and truly irritated. Hancock smiles slightly, smug; allows herself this small victory.

“What you think,” Hancock replies, coolly, “is of no concern to me.”        

Before Doflamingo can open his mouth to reply, the large wooden doors of the meeting room swing open. Sakazuki strides in, Marine coat flapping behind him, and takes a seat at the round table. He glances around, eyes landing on Doflamingo and Hancock herself, and his lips curl.

“Let’s get this meeting started,” he says, no small amount of distaste in his voice, “so I don’t have to abide you pirates in my headquarters for any longer.”

Doflamingo shifts, hopping away to take a seat thankfully far away from where Hancock is sat. Hancock only shrugs, one sinuous movement of her shoulder. “This meeting better be worth my time,” she tells the fleet admiral, reclining into Salome. “I get bored very easily, at these kinds of meeting, and who knows how many of your men will survive till the end if that happens.”

Her eyes flicker towards the Marine guard at the door, still frozen in a stone statue of adoration.

Sakazuki chooses not acknowledge her statement, and instead plunges straight ahead into outlining the meeting’s objectives at hand. Hancock sighs.

Hancock hates these meetings. They’re stupid and a waste of her time, and she can’t believe the Marines would have the nerve to think that they can order her around as they please, and she’s quite offended, frankly, but she had chosen to show up for this meeting, anyway– Because–

“–We will also be discussing Straw-Hat Luffy, who’s disappeared for a year now; scoundrels like you should know precisely where another scoundrel would hide–”

_Maybe, just maybe._ Doflamingo’s voice echoes in her mind. _The topic of the meeting today is something you’re interested in. Is that right, Boa Hancock?_

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They’re halfway through the meeting when the doors to the room slam open.

Hancock looks up, eager for any sort of fight. She’s impossibly bored and barely paying attention to the meeting – the Marines have only been dealing with and bringing up the topics that Hancock could honestly not care less about, and she cannot _believe_ they had the nerve to call her down for something as stupid as _this_ – so any excuse to turn someone to stone would help stave off her irritability at least for a little while. But when Hancock sees who’s precisely at the door, she can only arch an eyebrow.

Because who else should walk in but the infamous Surgeon of Death, Trafalgar Law – a supernova pirate part of the Worst Generation, known for his cruelty and mercilessness towards his victims, strolling into Marine headquarters as if he owns the place. There’s a gigantic sack slung over one of his shoulders, and one of his tattooed hands carries a long black sword. The hems of his dark open coat flap behind him as he moves, and his chest is bare of any other clothing, swirling tattoos prominently displayed almost as if in defiance against the world. He’s wearing his signature furry spotted hat.

Within seconds, there are Marines surrounding him on all sides, guns pointed up into his face. Law regards them all with one raised eyebrow, completely unimpressed; the lines of his back are loose and relaxed. Hancock leans back into Salome, and crosses her long legs, face propped up in one hand; she surveys the situation, curious. Well, at least she won’t be bored now.

Three seats away, Sakazuki is already on his feet. “Trafalgar Law,” he growls out. “What are you doing here?” Already his fists are beginning to pulse magma-red, steam curling out from the heat.

Law lifts one unhurried shoulder. “I heard that the Warlords and the Marines were having a meeting,” he drawls; there’s a smirk playing around the corners of his lips, infuriatingly cocky. “I had to show up, then, didn’t I? Though I must admit,” Law’s eyes dart around the room, “this is a rather pathetic turn-out for a Warlord meeting, don’t you think?”

Law’s eyes pass over Hancock only once. He doesn’t stop for recognition, doesn’t stop in acknowledgment, and that is just fine by her. Hancock watches as Law’s eyes take in the sole three people in the room, minus the guards – the other Warlords hadn’t even bothered to come. Buggy the Clown is off cavorting somewhere in the East Blue, in the usual ridiculous way of his, and Mihawk hasn’t shown up, as per usual. The fact that Bartholomew Kuma is not present, however, is a bit out of the ordinary; from what Hancock knows he had always been judicious with attendance not matter how trivial the meetings were. Not that it’s any of Hancock’s business what her fellow Warlords decide to do with their lives. And who even was the last one, again?

Something in Law’s expression changes when his eyes land on Doflamingo. The slightest tightening of the jaw, the minutest flashing of the eyes – and then Law is turning his head back to look at Sakazuki as though nothing happened.

There’s history there, Hancock guesses. Probably a deep and ugly history, judging from how the reaction slips out uncontrolled from the usually painstakingly apathetic surgeon, but Hancock doesn’t particularly care to know. She averts her eyes away.

Law lifts the hand that is not gripping the sword. Before a single Marine could even press a trigger, Law’s fingers _flick_ – and a blue dome bursts into the room. Before all their very eyes, the Marines around Law collapse; their bodies have been shambled into unserviceable pieces and are flopping madly around the room. An arm flies across the air and lands in front of Hancock on the table, jerking about in a way that is decidedly disconcerting. The arm looks almost unreal in the way it is neatly detached at the joint, with no blood or open wounded flesh to be seen. Hancock wrinkles her nose in disgust, and makes Salome pick up the arm and lob it into a corner with its tail.

“You’re not a Warlord, Trafalgar Law,” Sakazuki barks over the noise, “you are trespassing on government property, and I will not hesitate to throw you out, _by any means necessary–”_

“Yet,” Law interrupts.

Sakazuki, caught off guard, pauses. “What?”

“I’m not a Warlord _yet,_ Fleet Admiral Sakazuki,” Law corrects, smirking. “However, if I recall correctly, the last time I paid a visit to you in your office, you told me that if I met one condition, I would be made a Warlord.”

Law moves forward, and in one fluid movement jumps on top of the table. He heaves the bag that is over his shoulder to the front, and Hancock eyes it curiously. Something dawns on the fleet admiral then, because the grinding of his teeth down on his cigarette could be heard all across the room. “You can’t possibly mean–” He starts.

“I do mean, Fleet Admiral Sakazuki,” Law replies, before untying the string at the top of the sack and unceremoniously dumping its contents out for the whole room to see.

Still-beating human hearts encased in cubes of jelly slop across the table. They bounce across the surface, leaving trails and bits of slime everywhere, and they make a mountain in the middle, there are so many of them. The sight of it is so terribly grotesque that it effectively silences the panicked screeching of the shambled Marines; they could only stare in wide-eyed horror at the display.

One heart tumbles from the top of the pile, and slides to a stop in front of Hancock. Hancock is reminded incorrigibly of the arm from barely a few minutes ago, and, intrigued, leans forward to take a closer look. The heart pulses quietly, suspended within its containment, and it is very strange indeed. She has never seen a human heart quite like this before. Bloodied-still and torn out of chests, sure, but not like this; the heart is removed but very much alive.

Law gestures with one hand, leaning his sword against his shoulder. “The hearts of one-hundred pirates, right here at your disposal.” Law smugly grins. Grandly, he sweeps his hand out towards Sakazuki, who currently has a tick in his jaw, “consider this my in-ticket fee, fleet admiral. Am I considered a Warlord, now?”

Law’s eyes are half-lidded as he stares at Sakazuki, waiting for an answer. Sakazuki breathes in deeply through his nose, incensed. But he says nothing. The silence in the room hangs heavy as anticipation.

Hancock glances at Doflamingo out of the corner of her eye. The man is leaning forward from where he had been previously lounging on the chair, and the muscles in his face twitch with excitement and frenetic interest.

“…Return me my men, Trafalgar Law,” Sakazuki finally says, voice low.

Law raises an eyebrow, but acquiesces, lifting his fingers up again. A cool blue dome encases the room, and the men that had previously been spasming on the floor in heaps of unattached parts are now all suddenly whole again.

One Marine soldier rushes up to Sakazuki. “Sir–” He starts, eyes flickering towards Law, but Sakazuki holds up a hand. Confused, the men back away.

“Have a seat, Trafalgar Law.” The words slip out from between Sakazuki’s teeth as if it physically pains him to have to say it, but Sakazuki says them, anyway. “The meeting is not over yet. We still need to discuss a pressing issue at hand.”

The smile Law wears is nothing short of self-satisfactory and pleased as he walks across the table and jumps into a seat next to Hancock. Hancock pointedly shifts her legs away as Law rearranges himself into a more comfortable position, his sword nestled into the crook of his crossed arms, and neither she nor Law comment on it.

“Trafalgar Law.” She acknowledges.

His eyes flick over to her direction. “Boa Hancock,” he greets.

Doflamingo leans across the table to leer in Law’s direction. “Trafalgar Law,” he sing-songs, almost giddy with his excitement, “I look forward to working with you.”

Law clenches his jaw, and deigns not to respond.

Hancock sighs minutely, and leans back. A deep and ugly history, for sure. What a disaster.

The meeting resumes.

“Next on the agenda,” Sakazuki says. “Straw-Hat Luffy.”

_Finally._

Expectation curls in Hancock’s gut even as her face remains smooth and boredly neutral.

“I’ve been sending out search parties to locate the whereabouts of Straw-Hat Luffy and his crew since they’ve disappeared a year ago. But, so far, there has been absolutely no leads.”

Sakazuki glances down at the piece of paper clenched in his hands. “Straw-Hat Luffy is a dangerous man, and I will _not_ stand to have him roaming freely and unaccounted for–” Sakazuki says, pauses.

Turning his head, Sakazuki pins Law to his seat with his gaze. Hancock remembers, abruptly, a yellow submarine, submerging itself underwater, and the incensed gaze of an admiral who had wanted to follow it. Remembers the flash of white fur from a distinctive spotted hat. Remembers, abruptly, who Akainu is.

“Would _you,”_ Sakazuki asks, voice pitched low and dangerous, “know what’s happened to Straw-Hat Luffy by any chance, Surgeon of Death Trafalgar Law?”

Hancock stares hard at Law. But Law’s face betrays absolutely nothing whatsoever, immovable and impassive. His eyes don’t even flicker at Hancock’s direction.

Steadily, calmly, he says, “I have no idea what happened to him.”

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.

She finds him leaning against the wall of an undetermined corridor of the building afterwards.

“What are you playing at,” Hancock asks, slowly and deliberately, “Trafalgar Law?”

Salome is a large roiling mass around her sides, the fork of its tongue flickering in and out of its mouth as it regards the surgeon half-hidden in the shadows with alert eyes. Hancock runs a hand down its smooth scaly flank, anchoring herself in the way it coils closer to her.

When Law does not respond, Hancock repeats, “What are you playing at, Law?”

_Why did you choose to become a Warlord,_ Hancock wants to know. _What are you planning to do?_

“That’s not really any of your business, is it?” Law drawls, tone at once irritated and unconcerned.

Hancock crosses her arms. “It _is_ my business if it jeopardises Luffy’s safety,” she hisses, careful to keep her voice low lest anybody overhears. They’re still in enemy territory, no matter how incompetent Hancock may find them, and the walls have ears. “I don’t know what your motivations are, but I will not stand to have Luffy threatened, do you understand me?”

The only reason Hancock is asking at all is because her own interests could be jeopardised by the unknown factor that is Trafalgar Law; it is not a curiosity borne out of altruism or concern, but rather a selfish request to understand. Law may have saved Luffy’s life that one fateful day a year ago, emerging from the churning waters to snatch Luffy out of danger’s grasp and disappearing back under the surface again, but Hancock’s tolerance of Law starts and ends with Luffy. Whoever and whatever he is, outside of those perimeters, Hancock could not care less about – Hancock had promised herself years ago never to be forced to bow her head to any other man again, and this is no exception.

Hancock hears Law sigh. “I am not planning on it, Hancock-ya, if that is what you’re asking.” Law steps out of the shadows to face Hancock fully. There’s a look on Law’s face, as if he’s very, very tired; there are deep bags under his eyes, as if he hasn’t slept properly in years. But the look on his face is belligerent, defiant in its determination, and when Hancock appraises Law for a second too long Law juts his chin out and glowers in her face. His eyes say, _don’t sympathise with me._ They say _you don’t have the right._

Which suits Hancock just fine. Her concern with Law starts and ends with Luffy; she has neither time nor sympathy to spare, no compassion she’s willing to give. Hancock sets her jaw and glares right back, and her heels click sharp and deliberate against the stone floor as she moves forward.

“You better hope for your own sake that you’re not lying, Law,” Hancock says, right at his ear, as she brushes past him on her way down the corridor; Law doesn’t react, “because if Luffy is ever in danger because of what you’ve done, I’ll kill you right where you stand.” Intention and promise drips from her every word – and Hancock means what she says. She’ll turn Trafalgar Law to stone. She’ll crumble him to rubble and dust, toss the ruined remains of his person to sink into the bottom of the sea, and she will not feel an ounce of regret. For Luffy’s sake, she would gladly do it a hundred times over.

“I’d like to see you try, Hancock-ya.” Even with his back turned from her, Hancock can hear the smirk in Law’s voice.

Hancock grits her teeth. But insufferable though Law may be, Hancock’s tolerance with Law starts and ends with Luffy, and Law is still the surgeon who hauled the love of her life back from the edge of death, beat life and force into his body through skill and determination alone, and there is still a certain code of honour there, a precarious kind of peace; so Hancock exhales, and lets it go.

Both her and Law begin to walk away. The sound of Law’s footsteps staccatoed against the click of Hancock’s heels echo throughout the corridor.

“…He’s doing fine, if you would like to know,” Hancock says, the information pulling itself out of her as grudging as accountability. The sound of Law’s feet pause, and stop. Hancock does, too. There’s silence, for a moment.

“…That’s good to hear.” Law says, at last. His footsteps resume, and Hancock hears the sound of Law stepping out, around the corner and away.

Hancock faces forward, and does not look back.

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**Author's Note:**

> Afterwards Doflamingo probably corners Law somewhere and the both of them have a hissy exchange of words that only doesn’t explode into an all-out fight because they’re in the middle of Marine Headquarters and neither of them want to risk it. I ain’t tackling THAT scene, though, because that its own whole-ass Mess and I neither have the time nor the confidence to write that shit. 
> 
> Also I question the probability of Akainu ever holding a meeting with the Warlords, given his intense hatred for pirates; but well, eh, suspension of disbelief, amirite. Also if he seems not much more than a growly angry dog in this fic it’s because I had my hands full just dealing with the dynamics between the three disaster Warlords in this fic, and out of time, laziness and sheer spite I chose not to flesh Akainu out too much. (Marineford still hurts – and this bitch does not forgive nor does she forget.) 
> 
> If you liked the fic, please leave kudos or comments! Comments make my day :)) I also have a [tumblr](http://guilty-lights.tumblr.com/), if you wanna stop by! 
> 
> [time ended: 18th Nov 18, 4:59pm;– ]


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